The Davis Cup Is Broken Fans Deserve a Real World Cup For Tennis
Open Rod Laver’s autobiography, The Education of a Tennis Player , and find yourself reminded again and again that there was a time when Davis Cup tennis mattered. Really mattered. Mattered to top players. Mattered to fans. Mattered to Bud Collins, who wrote the book with Laver. (Mattered to Australia, of course, which dominated Davis Cup play in the 1950s and 1960s.) Mattered to tennis’ sense of itself—the way the majors continue to matter, but Davis Cup no longer does. Laver ranks the pressure he felt playing Davis Cup with that of playing at Wimbledon. He recalls the 1959 Davis Cup final on grass at Forest Hills, where Australia wrested the cup from the reigning American champions—and where the young Laver lost both his rubbers, or matches—as being “as tense as anything I’ve been through.” He loved playing for his country—and how the fans and the press got worked into a frenzy—and believed the other players of his time did, too. He quotes Arthur Ashe, who thought Davis Cup was bigger than the
By Gerald Marzorati
Hypothetical branding by Luke Shuman
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